Lucknow, June 16 (IANS) To give a further boost to Liquor sale, the Uttar Pradesh government is planning to open 449 new liquor shops in the coming weeks.

Once the latest phase of allocating IMFL, beer and model shops takes place through online lottery on June 20, the state would have close to 30,000 retail vends.

The Excise Department is expecting to achieve significantly higher revenue through retail licence fees.

While in the last financial year, close to Rs 3,000 crore was generated through licensing of 29,522 retail vends, this time the department is eyeing at Rs 3,600 crore revenue.

Officials said that the decision to set up 449 new shops has been taken due to rapid urbanisation and mushrooming of new colonies.

As a result, 55 out of the 75 districts in the state are going to have new shops.

Among them Lucknow, Bahraich, Mau, Unnao, Sultanpur, Kanpur and Ayodhya will have 15 to 23 new vends due to rapid expansion of urban limits.

Officials said that provisions were made in the policy to set up 2 per cent increased shops compared to previous year to meet the increased demand.

"In Lucknow, 23 new shops have been floated and an online lottery procedure is underway. We have considered the distance between existing shops and the population base within that distance. Feedback has been taken from the existing retailers to find out how many localities are being covered and what is the immediate catchment.

Localities which hold potential for liquor business have been selected to set up new shops," said district excise officer of Lucknow, S.K. Mishra.

--IANS

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